CSX project is eyesore to some, a boon to others

The $100 million CSX freight yard expansion that is rising from the muck on the city's east side has been derided and praised from all sides of the community, depending on who's talking.

It has been called an economic engine, and rightfully so. The huge project has created 1,000 construction jobs from Boston to Worcester, and will keep 80 permanent jobs in Worcester once the dust settles.

Neighbors have complained long and loud about the resulting truck traffic, noise and air pollution, among other problems they believe the larger freight yard will make worse.

Once completed, the freight yard, as one city official once said to me, will only add to the perception that Worcester is becoming “New England's broom closet.”

Broom closets, however, can make good film sets. Union Station and Worcester Regional Airport were used recently for a major motion picture and a network television pilot.

As to the CSX facility, there are no film crews lining up to do a breathless documentary on its construction. The bottom line is that no matter how much CSX spends on it — no matter what words of praise are spoken by company officials and politicians at the ribbon cutting due to happen at the end of the year — it's still going to be a freight yard, only bigger.

Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray praised the CSX project last week, saying that it will bring more commuter trains to Worcester and open up prime Boston real estate for redevelopment.

“They are really the enabling networks of our community,” Mr. Murray told a group of “rail enthusiasts” at the Short Rail Corridor Expo held at the DCU Center this week.

CSX officials spoke lovingly of their freight yard as well, seeing the beauty in brand-new cranes, seven different kinds of retaining walls, the bridge taking shape that will allow trucks to drive up and over Franklin Street, and more.

“Just having a rail yard with new rail yard cranes, that's beautiful to us,” said Steve Potter, a CSX official, before a group of fellow expo attendees. “I'm going to get you all excited about the dirt we're moving.”

The cranes he is talking about are four double-track, electric gantry cranes, which are the latest model available and only used on the West Coast. They are quieter than the two diesel cranes now in place, he noted.

“These are the first cranes like this to be used east of the Mississippi,” he said.

But the four new cranes will not replace the two old cranes.

CSX officials put a 10-foot-long map of the project on the wall, which showed, in intricate detail, where trucks and trains will come into the freight yard, where the cranes are, and the location of four new buildings.

Each truck coming into the yard from Grafton Street will receive a bar code, which will direct it to the area of the freight yard where its load awaits.

“It's a high-tech tracking system for all trucks,” said Mr. Potter.

He explained how the work here is part of a larger effort.

“When this is done, we have the ability to make Worcester a hub for all of New England,” he said. CSX is also improving its facility in Westboro, as well as raising bridges and lowering tracks at 34 railroad crossings up and down the East Coast. That will allow double-stacked freight containers to pass unimpeded to the new freight yard. That work should be completed by the end of August, he said.

The massive project has caused its own share of problems, such as the 30-foot-long crack that developed in the sidewalk along Franklin Street, which sits on top of some of the huge retaining walls that CSX has built to prevent the street from tumbling down on its new train tracks.

There are a few lucky landowners who must feel like they hit the lottery with this project.

Ding On “Tony” Kwan of Framingham sold 255 Franklin St. and 320 Franklin St. to CSX for $2.9 million. They were assessed together at $299,500 meaning they sold for 10 times their value.

You might remember that Mr. Kwan, a Harvard-trained architect and native of Hong Kong, also owned the Worcester Cold Storage & Warehouse building where six Worcester firefighters lost their lives in 1999.

Shaw's Supermarkets received $19.4 million for the supermarket on Grafton Street that it closed in 2006. It was assessed at $6.95 million, but was apparently worth a lot more to CSX. Several other landowners along Franklin Street and Putnam Lane received payouts that were double, triple and more above the assessed values.

So who thinks freight yards are beautiful?

Rail enthusiasts, politicians and a chosen few landowners.

The rest of us, though, see acres upon acres of trains, tracks and trucks.

Contact Aaron Nicodemus at anicodemus@telegram.com or at (508) 793-9245.